My suggestion is to throw away the box! Then sanity kicks in and other solutions emerge.
Some of you may see the opening of telecom markets; some the demise of “old economy” cell phone companies; some the dominance of Google. I saw the triumph of innovation.
Apple’s iPhone started it but Google’s plan will change the game for AT&T, Verizon and others. The handheld is now a computer not a mish mash of converging technologies. The competition has to find a way to compete.
Is the proposed handheld very complex to design and manufacture? I don’t think so. Is it too hard to distribute? Not really. Nothing in the entire value chain of this proposed model is complex or difficult. So why could an AT&T not come up with it? Because they have inertia working against them. In order to create something new, you have to destroy what you have. This creative destruction is the hardest thing for organizations to do. This is why incumbents often fail – eyes wide open and unable to move!
IT Strategy, indeed strategy itself, is often deemed inseparable from “thinking outside the box.” This view is on the money. IT Strategy is about ideas and solutions that do not just move your business forward; they help you leapfrog the competition. IT Strategy and innovation are inseparable.
But invaluable as that gem is, the issue as always is in the implementation. All investors know that the path to salvation is in “buy low and sell high” but few can actually pull it off. Innovation is also a beast few have tamed.
Here are a few of things to ponder.
- Innovation is a process: Archimedes was at it for a while before his “eureka” moment! Organizations also have to create and embed an innovation process that continually comes up with new ideas and tests them for practical application. Rarely, if ever, will you have your “eureka” moment without this process in place.
- Innovation is a team sport: Business is a team sport. IT and “business” are on the same side. Go it alone and lose. Disrespect each other and you lose. Don’t collaborate with each other and lose.
- Customer is sometimes wrong: we have been brought up on the mantra that the “customer is always right.” Well, that is wonderful for customer service. It is also useful for innovation but in a different way. As Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” Sometimes you have to lead the customer to what they cannot envision. Henry Ford did as he laughed all the way to the bank. Starbucks does. Indeed all successful organizations at one time or another lead their customers through their vision.
- Too much testosterone; too much trouble: Leapfrog does not literally mean bet the farm. More often than not, innovations come in baby steps that seem like giant leaps. They fundamentally alter the face of competition not necessarily your operations. It is the latter that is more difficult to change. It is the latter where a lot of companies fail. Customers also do not jump to an innovation overnight. There is the infamous innovation adoption bell curve that they follow.
The new mantra is: Innovate or die!
